


The Courage Of Stars

by always_a_queen



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), because the universe hates me, cause we all know how hard it is to find ACTUAL fosterson fic, fosterson, like actual focus on Fosterson and not a side pairing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-07 17:02:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18877423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/always_a_queen/pseuds/always_a_queen
Summary: He was wrong, Thor realizes, as a shudder of horror goes through him. When he told the Rabbit that there was nothing more for him to lose, he was wrong.He was wrong. He was unbelievably, unquestionably wrong.With a snap of Thano’s fingers, half the universe blows away. And Thor realizes just what he could still lose. Things that he could have already, a half-blink of a moment ago, already lost.Heimdall, the warriors three, his father, his mother, and his brother, all are lost to him.But there are others still, who hold Thor’s heart in their hands, and the odds are not in their favor.--Half the universe turns to dust. Thor goes to find the one person who is his whole universe.Thor/Jane Post-Infinity War and during/after Endgame. Spoilers for both movies and Ragnarok





	The Courage Of Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Endgame, Infinity War, and Ragnarok. Title borrowed from a line in Saturn by Sleeping at Last, which I highly recommend cause it's lovely.

He was wrong, Thor realizes, as a shudder of horror goes through him. When he told the Rabbit that there was nothing more for him to lose, he was wrong.

He was wrong. He was unbelievably, unquestionably wrong.

With a snap of Thano’s fingers, half the universe blows away. And Thor realizes just what he could still lose. Things that he could have already, a half-blink of a moment ago, already lost.

Heimdall, the warriors three, his father, his mother, and his brother, all are lost to him.

But there are others still, who hold Thor’s heart in their hands, and the odds are not in their favor.

He opens one hand, and Stormbreaker rises to meet his palm. It is unfamiliar under his touch, heavy in his hand. It is not _Mjölnir_.

Closing his eyes, Thor turns his face to the battlefield. Wails and screams fill the air. These are not the cries of the dead and dying. These are the sounds of the living and left behind.

There is a lull after the battle. There always is in wars such as these. There is no knowing where Thanos has gone. There is no knowing how to find him.

More than that, there are dead to count. No soul is left untouched. The deaths rippled across the universe with cruel impartiality.

Thor does not want to know. He was perfectly happy living his life knowing, _believing_ , that she was out there, happy. She was safe. Heimdal would keep watch over her. He could handle anything the universe threw at him so long as she was safe.

Except now there is no Heimdal. There is no safety. The universe is empty. It used to call out to Thor, to sing, to teem with life and love and laughter.

Now all Thor feels in his bones is an ache of loneliness. Failure crackles through his veins in place of lightning.

Then Thanos uses the stones again. Jane is swept from his mind. They can fix this. They can right this wrong. They can bring everyone back.

But no. No, the gauntlet is empty—black holes cratered in the knuckles of the gold glove. It looks how Thor feels. Tarnished. Eviscerated. Hollowed out. Everything precious ripped away and apart.

Thanos speaks but Thor can barely hear through the anger rushing in his ears, burning in his chest.

Lightning flickers on his fingers. Stormbreaker sparks.

With one motion Thor separates Thanos’ head from his shoulders. It falls to the ground and rolls. Stormbreaker drips blood.

It does nothing to cool the rage inside Thor.

With his blood-red cape blowing behind him, Thor steps into the daylight of Thanos’ brave new world.

* * *

 

He does not go to Jane right away. He waits. He mourns his own fallen comrades. He mourns with the living.

He stays until he feels like his heart is about to break out of his chest. He looks at Steve and says, “Captain.”

“Go,” Steve tells him.

“Send a raven,” Thor says, knowing full well Midgardians no longer put their trust in such things for communication. It makes Steve smile in a half-hearted way.

When he first sees her, her back is to him. Her hair is shorter than he remembers, but still a familiar dark brown against the purples, blues, and yellows of her plaid button down shirt. Her hands are on her hips, and her eyes are on the stars.

The woman does love her rooftops. This one is back in Puente Antiguo, on the top of what Thor thinks was the old restaurant. It’s closed now. At Jane’s side is a device she’s shown him before. Her telescope.   

The Bifrost fades around him, leaving the world shaded in dimmer hues.

“Jane.” The word feels strange on his tongue. It’s been so long since he said it. So long since he’s let himself even _think_ it.

“You’re still here,” he says. He’d known that before he’d come, but seeing it, seeing that Jane, his Jane, hasn’t been reduced to ashes and dust is something else entirely.

She turns. Her mouth opens, but she doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t smile; she doesn’t cry. She just stares. What he had not considered, apparently, was the fact that she hadn’t known he was alive. She hadn’t known.

Ages ago, he’d flown down from the skies through the Bifrost, and she’d run to him before he’d even fully materialized.  That’s the way she runs to him now.

Thor practically pulls her up off of her feet. She is so small. Her arms are around his neck, and she smells of cinnamon.

She is earth. She is the dust and the breath of earth. Midgard is Jane. Jane is Midgard.

Both are home.

“Darcy,” she says. “Darcy and Erik both—” Her breath catches. She doesn’t need to finish. She hides her face in his shoulders. The wind kicks up and blows his cape up and around them both.

It would not be fair or right to kiss her here, though he wants to. He left her for the Universe. For Asgard and for the Nine Realms.

He’s lost the Universe. He’s lost Asgard. The Nine Realms are in turmoil. She is what is left. She is all that is left.

He does not know that he was ever strong enough to let her go completely. For too many nights his last thought before sleep was her. For just as many mornings, she has been his first thought upon opening his eyes. He does not know that he is strong enough to let her go now, but eventually he has to let her feet touch the ground again. He has to let her step back, look down, and gently wipe the tears from her eyes.

“I am sorry,” he says, catching one of her hands in his and pressing a long kiss to her knuckles. “Truly.”

It was mutual, their parting. That did not erase the ache for either of them. Thor knows it.

But now everything has changed. And all he wants, all he needs, all he cannot bear to lose, is right _here_.

“I was afraid,” he tells her. “I was afraid that you were…”

Gone. Dust. Swept away by the wind.

“I was too,” she says. “But then you were on the news.”

He was. He’s glad then, that she hadn’t had to worry.

But his losses, Heimdal, Sif, Fandrall, Hogon, Volstagg, they are innumerable. Loki. His father.

His mother.

And here, in front of him, earth on her palms and dust on her face and starlight in her eyes, is Jane.

_Jane._

She reaches up to touch his face. He resists the urge to close his eyes. He has a new one, and it works well, but the color is different, off-putting. The scars are still there from Hela, and Jane’s fingers sweep over them.

“What happened?”

“My sister; Hela, she—” he says, voice soft. He doesn’t really wish to talk about it. He doesn’t want to think of the events that transpired that brought about Ragnarok.

He just wants her here. Just for a minute. There are no more realms to govern. Those of Asgard who have survived have taken refuge on Midgard, and for the moment they are safe.

There is nothing more for him now. Nothing. No war. No purpose. No stones to find, no battle to fight, no brother to protect.

There is only Jane.

And Thor, lost, bewildered, bereaved, broken, without his hammer, his people, or his home, finds himself crying as he stares in wonder and grief at the last thing he has left.

She pulls him in close, hiding her face in his neck. He feels her body shaking with sobs.

And maybe, he thinks, he’s the last thing she has left too.

* * *

Thor should go back.

He should, but he doesn’t. He gets coffee with Jane. They take their to-go cups, sit on the rooftop, and they watch the stars.

The realms mourn. Thor can feel them. When his mother died, the realms mourned with a sweet song. He could feel it vibrating in the air, soft notes passing in the breeze to honor and remember.

This is not that. This is pain. Thor can feel it raw and loud. The universe is crying out in anger, when Thanos thought it would cry out in gratitude.

He tells Jane this. She says, “I think the stars are growing dim. I thought it was just me.”

It's not just her. Even in the quiet stillness of New Mexico the stars are dim.

Jane scoots closer beside him. He tucks her beneath his arm, wrapping the blanket stretched over his shoulders around her too.

She is small beside him. Fragile. Human. Finite.

She is a loveliness that is fleeting. She does not stretch into infinities like he does. Like he will. He will miss her dearly, he knows, when her years run out and his run on.

They find solace together in her trailer. He can taste the salt on her lips from her tears when he kisses her. Her nails bite into his skin as she pulls him down over her.

They are fast and frantic. It’s a reunion each has longed for countless times. He’s never gotten over her. She’s never gotten over him.

All he can hear is the rush of her breath and the sounds of her gasps in the closed space. The universe’s wailing ceases for a moment. There is only _Jane, Jane, Jane._

The bed is small and so they stay close, even after their joining is through. She lays more on top of him than beside him, her cheek to his chest, her limbs entwined in his.

A few hours later, they are slow and intentional. Thor kisses the insides of her thighs, braces his forearm across her belly, and holds her still as she fists her fingers in his hair while he teases her with his tongue.

Still later, she presses her palms to his chest and he stays still as she moves above him, the rhythm of her hips and the soft flush on her cheeks and chest more intoxicating than the finest thousand-year ale on Asgard. Like it, Jane Foster was certainly not made for mortal men.

Come morning, thunderstorms have broken out across the sky. The clouds above flash with lighting. Thunder rumbles, low and heavy.

Thor slides out of bed, leaving Jane with her dreams. Barefoot, his toes sink into fresh mud as he steps out of Jane's trailer.

The rain hits heavy and hard. In a matter of seconds his flannel shirt is soaked, and Thor quickly sheds it, letting the droplets hit his skin. The water is cool and fresh. Thor turns his face up, watching the lightning crackle and flash.

He remembers a night where he was wet with rain and mud, staring up at a stormy sky, and wailing at the heavens.

Unworthy.

As he is now. There is no redemption for him left, he thinks. Not for him.

Stormbreaker does not judge his worthiness to wield it, and who can say if his failure to stop the disappearance of hundreds of billions of innocent life forms has made him unworthy to wield _Mjölnir_. He aches to know, and dreads the knowledge all the same.

He told his father, what seems like an eternity ago, that he would rather be a good man than a great king. Perhaps here, with Jane he can be a good man.

Jane finds him later, flat on his back. The rain has stopped. The concrete is hard and wet but she lays down beside him anyway. Her hand is soft and small in his.

“You left me for Asgard,” she says.

“You chose not to come with me,” he replies. It's an old argument. There's no bite in it now. He wanted her with him. She wanted him to stay.

Pulled in separate directions, they fractured, and then broke.

“There’s nowhere for me to go, now,” Thor says softly.

“I know,” Jane replies. Her fingers tighten around his. “So stay with me.”

He does.

* * *

Years pass.

Five, in total. When Banner and Rocket come to get him, he’s still at Jane’s side. The nurse gives the talking racoon a few funny looks, but finishes with Jane’s IV and steps out of the room.

“Jane,” Bruce says softly. Thor watches as Jane smiles at him. It’s a weak smile. Self-consciously, she adjusts the flowery scarf wrapped around her otherwise bare head. Her face is thin and drained of color, but her eyes still hold the stars.

Chemo, radiation, surgery, none of it had taken those stars from her eyes.

The years have worn on her more than him. His hair is long again, hanging past his shoulders. His beard is full. He is ageless, infinite. But she has aged a decade in half the time.

Thor lifts Jane’s hand to his lips and gives the back a gentle kiss. “We’ll talk outside. I’ll be right back.”

“You don’t—”

“Rest,” he tells her. It speaks to how tired she is that her head barely nods in agreement before her eyes close.

Scant minutes later, Thor throws his fist against the wall. Long-suppressed rage and anger flood back at the injustice of all those billions of lives turned into dust.

“I can’t leave her,” he says finally, softly. “I _won’t_ leave her again. I gave my word.”

“What is _wrong_ with her?” the racoon asks.

Banner looks sorrowful.

“She is dying,” Thor tells him. She is dying, and he can do nothing. Again. Misery and grief wash through him, replacing the rage and anger.

“Thor,” Jane is in the doorway, an IV trailing behind her. Her hospital gown hangs loose on her shoulders. “You have to go.”

“You are supposed to be resting,” he tells her, not unkindly. “Jane, please.”

“Take me with you,” she says, and he’s so thrown by it that he freezes in the middle of reaching out to her.

Banner and Rocket share a look. “I don’t think that’s—” Banner starts to say, but his implication that there is something Jane cannot do stirs something hot and angry in Thor.

“I can _help_ ,” Jane says.

“You,” Rocket says, “Look like a light breeze could push you over.” He waves his paws as if to demonstrate.  

Jane turns a piercing gaze on him that makes even Thor take a small step backwards. “I was possessed by an infinity stone. I am one of the world’s leading astrophysicists. I am the world’s foremost astronomer. I am one of the premiere experts on Asgard. I know how to build Einstein-Rosen bridge. You need my help.”

The racoon cocks his head to one side. “Maybe we do.”

He leans over to Banner, and as if Thor and Jane couldn’t possibly hear him, he says, “I think I am starting to like this one.”

A few minutes later, after Jane has fought with four orderlies, three nurses, and two doctors, Thor pushes her wheelchair out of the hospital.

She stands uneasily on her feet, one hand on Thor’s shoulder for balance. Banner and Rocket stand beside them.

Thor stretches out his hand. Stormbreaker rises to his palm. The bifrost swirls around them, lifting and pulling.

He pulls Jane close to his chest and holds her tightly.

It is decided, through many various conversations and arguments, that Thor and Rocket should be the two to get the Aether from Jane’z veins in Asgard. Thor does not want to leave Jane, but she is seated comfortably in one of Stark’s wheelchairs, and she seems perfectly content waiting behind. She’s also looking a lot stronger than he’s seen her in months. Apparently fighting to save half of the universe looks good on her.

Maybe they both needed a purpose.

For a few moments after they arrive on the place that was his home for centuries, Thor just stares.

Rocket nudges him with his elbow. “You gonna get us where we need to go, or not?”

But Thor’s eyes are on a place long lost. The sights and sounds, the smells, the taste of the air, all call to him. This is home. His heart aches with the thought.

Asgard is brilliance and color. Gold hues of the buildings shine in the light. Several hover in midair. Thor can hear the animals, the insects. He can smell the air of Asgard, fresh and pure and crisp in a way that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the universe.

Thor presses his palm against one of the great pillars of the palace. It’s gone now. Or it will be gone. It’s dust. It burned in fire and soot when Hela…

When Ragnarok...

Thor shakes his head to clear it. “Let’s go,” he tells Rocket.

Rocket mutters something under his breath, but Thor ignores him. Something is calling to him. Something familiar. It’s not Asgard itself. But it’s something…

Something…

 _Familiar_.

The palace is crawling with old friends. It’s easy to navigate the palace, even while trying to avoid anyone who will recognize him. Thor stops short at Jane’s room.

“Hey, dude,” Rocket snaps, “What gives? You know the plan. Distract the girl, stick her with the syringe and then—”

“I _know_ ,” Thor says gruffly. “I know. I just—”

There’s her voice, thanking a handmaid for bringing her fresh clothes, assuring the girl that what she has brought her will be fine.

Her dark hair hides her face, but her _hair_. It curls against her shoulders, brown and smooth. She’s nothing like how he just saw her, pale and weak fighting a battle he can’t fight for her. A battle in her own body.

He knocks on her door gently, hesitantly. When she opens it and sees him, the brightest smile lights up her face.

“Hi,” she says shyly, “I thought you weren’t going to be back for another few hours.”

“I—” With her right in front of him, he cannot remember what he was supposed to be doing or what excuse he had thought up for coming back to see her. “You’re beautiful.”

Her cheeks flush. “Speak for yourself,” she mutters, looking down.

He catches her chin in his hand. “I do not lie, Jane. You are beauty, and starfire and—”

She pushes herself up on her toes to kiss him, and he is lost. It’s not that he loves her more than his Jane, future Jane, who would make him coffee and eggs in the mornings even after she got sick. It’s that he loves every version of her. Past. Present. Future.

But it makes his heart hurt to see how lovely and healthy she is here. The cancer hasn’t ravaged her body yet.

He pulls back, about to say that he’s sorry—for what he doesn’t know—when she collapses in his arms.

He’s about to yell for help, he’s about to call for a doctor or a nurse, a medic, but Rocket says, “Good work.”

He waves the container with the Aether swirling around inside it, and Thor’s heart—which had stopped—starts beating again.

She’s fine. She will be fine. Thor lifts her carefully and carries her to a nearby settee. He brushes her hair out of her face.

“C’mon,” Rocket hisses. “Let’s get _out_ of here.”

Thor ducks his head, takes one last, long look at Jane, and then follows Rocket out of the room.

The racoon taps the device on his wrist. “Sync up,” he says.

Thor stops, holding up a finger. That familiar feeling is still ringing in his chest. Something…

Something…

Something Thor doesn’t even dare to hope. He stretches out his hand, closes his eyes, and returns the call.

 _Mjölnir_ flies to meet him. Thor closes his fingers around it.

 _Worthy_.

Still.

Somehow. Miraculously. Worthy.

Thor opens his eyes. “Let’s go.”

* * *

The Widow is dead. Thor leaves the party of mourners to find Jane, trying in vain to push past his own grief lodged somewhere in his throat. He finds her outside, blanket draped across her legs, face up towards the sky, eyes closed.

He rests a hand on her shoulder, and she looks up. “You got them?” she asks.

“All of them,” he replies, lifting the hammer into her view. “And an old friend.”

Jane reaches forward to touch _Mjölnir_ , her fingers tracking the words. “To whoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy…”

He has told her his doubts, his fears. He has whispered them at night with her wrapped in his arms and the a sky full of stars twinkling down at them.

“Told you so,” Jane says.

He can’t help but kiss her, lightly. She has told him so. Many, many times. She is the only reason he had dared to hope.

“What are they going to do?” Jane asks.

“They think Banner should wield it,” Thor says. “All I know is I cannot.”

She frowns. “You think it would kill you?”

“I think I do not want to open myself up to that kind of power.” He spins _Mjölnir_ in the air. “It would not be wise. Banner is strong enough. He can do it.”

“I want to be there,” Jane says.

Thor does not know what will happen if Banner puts on the gauntlet. He does not want to put Jane in danger.

“Of course,” he tells her.

* * *

 

The room is quiet. Everyone is still, silent. Bruce slides the glove on, and Thor moves ever-so-slightly in front of Jane.

When the snap happens, he hears Jane’s gasp. A wave of something pulses through the room. Thor feels it too.

“You guys,” Scott says, distant and far away. “I think it worked.”

And then the world explodes.

When Thor cracks his eyes open, there is Jane.

But it’s not Jane.

Her hair is long and blonde. Her eyes are blue ice. A red cape flows behind her. Lightning crackles above her. On her head is a helmet of silver with wings that stretch upward to the sky. She is beautiful and terrifying, like a thunderstorm made flesh.

In her right hand, there is _Mjölnir_.

Thor stares. And stares.

And _stares_.

“I knew it,” he whispers finally.

And there, on the hammer, he can see the scrawling verse, “Whosoever holds this hammer, if _she_ be worthy…”

Thor grins. Stormbreaker responds easily to his call.

Thanos barely survived _him_. He won’t survive both of them.

* * *

After, Thor sits with Jane. The stars are a canopy above them. The grass is soft beneath the blanket Thor has spread out across the grass.

He holds Jane against him, her back to his chest. She rests her head against his shoulder, turning her head so her cheek presses against his.

“They just go on,” she whispers. “Forever and ever.”

His heart aches. “I want to show you all of them.”

She hums softly. “You have.”

He hasn’t. He knows this. But he doesn’t think he ever can.

“You are speaking in metaphor,” he surmises.

“But I’m being serious about it,” she says. “You dropped down from the sky and changed my life, forever. Some kind of falling star. An angel with a hammer.”

He smiles. He can’t help it. “Besotted by a lady with the knowledge of the stars.”

He turns his head just slightly so he can see her face. Her eyes are closed. Her breath is soft against his cheek.

“You know,” she whispers, “Some of them are gone. Their light is just still with us. You can still see some of them even after they’re long gone because the light keeps traveling.”

“My Lady Jane,” he murmurs. He kisses her jaw.

“Thor,” she whispers suddenly.

“Yes,” he replies.

“Are the stars going out?” she asks, her voice soft and breathy. “I think it got darker. I think—”

“Shhh,” he brushes back her hair, holds her a little tighter. “It’s alright. Stay with me, Jane.”

“Always,” she says. Her chest rises.

It falls.

Thor’s tears burn his eyes. He leans his head back, looking up at the stars. One streaks across the sky. Thunder rumbles in the distance. Clouds move in. Rain begins to fall.

In agony, in pain, in grief, Thor screams.

She’s gone.

* * *

 "What will you do?” Steve asks. He holds the infinity stones in one hand, and Mjolner in the other.

Thor is quiet. Natasha. Tony. Jane. It all aches inside him. He does not get anyone back, not really.

And then Steve doesn’t come back. Steve stays. Steve has a life.

Thor’s fingers twitch for Mjolner, but he holds steady to Stormbreaker.

He doesn’t know what he’s going to do.

He still doesn’t know what he’s going to do when he steps on board Quill’s ship. This seems like an unwise decision for many, many reasons. It used to be that he no longer belonged on Asgard. Now it seems he no longer belongs on Midgard.

But the stars. They call him. He feels it in his bones. In his lightning. It’s time to go.

She has gone, and now he must go too. Stormbreaker is heavy in his hand. His heart is heavy in his chest.

Lightning flickers across his fingertips. Where he will go and what he will do are things he cannot yet say.

It used to be Midgard that called to him. He looked at it like Jane looked at the stars. But she is gone. And Thor finds his attention turning to the thing that captured hers.

Thor stares at the stars flickering in the sky, whose light still calls out after their death. He thinks of Jane. He is not alone. There are stars that are long dead, and yet Thor can still see them. Jane is gone, and Thor can still feel her. Her light still reaches him. And with it, he can go on.

The stars wink at him. He smiles back.

* * *

_end._

 


End file.
